The Push and Pull of the Designer Behind Lia X Lauren
We reconnected with Lia Lauren Barchet, the designer behind Lia X Lauren, a Zurich based fine jewellery brand that we believe is rejecting the industry’s preconceived notions on what a fine jewellery designer should or shouldn’t be.
It takes immense self discipline to see a collection from start to finish in the way you have. You have described hedonism when working but also a particular refinement in the way that you explored these concepts, creating high quality pieces out of visceral human emotions and elements. What kept you driven whilst developing your first collection?
I’d made an inner promise to myself to carry this project out to completion. I remember the moment I received my first set of silversmithing tools. I hadn’t made a single piece of jewellery yet, and yet when I held the tools in my hands, there was an inner voice that said, “I’m going to do this and I’m going to do this properly”. I was the type of person to throw myself into a lot of diverse creative pursuits, explore them intensely for some time, and then move on to the next. With silversmithing, it was different. I felt it intuitively, so I made that promise to myself not to quit.
In that same moment, I remember having a vision of a cuff very similar to the Graphic Nature cuff in the collection. It was like a download. It took a few years to materialise, but I really held on to that vision and inner promise. When the soul speaks to you through nudges, you have to listen.
What is something that nobody tells you about being a founder of your own brand?
How supportive everyone is. You hear so much about the hardships and possible negative feedback from others. Maybe founders like to glorify the struggle. Not to say it isn’t true, the struggle is real. But I’ve found people are so positive when you chase your passions. If the people around you bring you down, you might want to question their motives.
You’ve said that you’re more interested in your pieces revealing something about the person who wears them rather than acting as armor - what do you think your pieces when worn reveal about a person?
Firstly, wearing more imposing pieces like a collar makes you visible. There’s no hiding away. I like that feeling of exposure. It requires you to fully own your presence, to embrace being seen. I think it reveals a radical ownership of your desires, of being in control of your pleasure. Perhaps the jewellery is more like a recognition. The people who get the references relate to the symbolism, while those who don’t just think it’s an edgy piece of jewellery. I like to play with innuendos rather than make the work obvious.
You’ve used the phrase ‘hedonistic metalwork’ to describe your practice and have spoken about pleasure and play in the context of your making processes. What is your ritual to get yourself fully immersed in that?
I always try to bring myself to create from a space of play. I take the craftsmanship seriously, but the creation process and the jewellery itself are not serious. It’s supposed to be fun. While creating, I usually listen to music that conveys the same mood that I want the wearer to feel. I listened a lot to Deftones while creating that first collection. The Graphic Nature cuff was a reference to that. I resonate with the mix of beauty and brutality, so music is fundamental to setting the tone. I constantly have a soundtrack to my life. As for the other rituals, I can’t write about that in a public article.
You speak about the oscillation between attraction and repulsion and we agree, there is also a thin line between love and hate but the two can be so similar. The push and pull aspects of your Polar Vortex collection are perfectly communicated via the metalwork - what other human philosophies would you communicate in metalwork, if money was no object?
Immortality and decay. I seem to always think in terms of paradoxes. I’ve often thought that if I weren’t into metal, I would work with flowers. It’s nearly on the opposite side of the spectrum from metal: soft, fragile, ephemeral. I love the hardness of metal and its eternal quality, but I just as much value what lasts only an instant. There’s beauty in the impending decay.
See more from Lia x Lauren here: https://liaxlauren.com/
